Is Ginger Tea Safe For Pregnancy?

When you are heavy with a child, your taste for food and drinks changes. You may even have an aversion or a craving for certain food. Furthermore, your aversion or craving for certain foods or drinks may also change during your pregnancy. When it comes to teas to drink, you may find one to be the best tea for pregnancy and later on find the smell or the taste unacceptable. Whether you think that the foods and drinks before you among those that you love to eat and drink, you still need to know whether it will benefit you and your baby. As with the tea that you can think of drinking, some can also pose danger to your condition, so you should be careful when choosing the tea to drink when you are pregnant.

Drinking Tea Improves Health

Tea drinking has been a habit that many people find quite satisfying whether it is hot or cold since it serves more than just a refreshment. Tea contains antioxidants that help neutralize harmful free radicals in the body, keeping the cells in your body healthy. It also has less caffeine so it can also perk you up without much of the negative effects of caffeine.

Drinking tea can also help improve the health of your heart. Studies have established a link correlating drinking tea to a lessened risk of heart attack and stroke.

Some even find drinking tea to be helpful in shedding some weight. Tea can also serve well you need something to soothe the tummy, especially those who are experiencing irritable bowel syndrome.

One of the available research even indicated that drinking tea can even prevent cancers. Public health nutritionist Dr. Carrie Ruxton together with his colleagues at Kings College London conducted a study on the effects of drinking tea and concluded that drinking tea can be even better than drinking water.

According to Ruxton, “tea drinking is most common in older people, the 40 plus age range. In older people, tea sometimes made up about 70% of fluid intake so it is a really important contributor.”

Is ginger safe for pregnancy?

Even with the many benefits that you may get if you decide to include tea drinking in your daily habit, you may still need to take note that there are some tea variants that can be hazardous to your health.

One of the widely used natural ingredients in tea making is ginger. It has been used not only as a soothing tea but also used in cooking. Not everyone finds consuming ginger gratifying. Some might have had an upset stomach or experienced heartburn after drinking ginger tea. If you are taking blood thinners or taking medications for blood sugar or high blood pressure, you should find other tea variants as ginger contains that chemical that is also found in aspirin known as salicylates. This chemical acts as a blood thinner so you may feel a little lightheaded after drinking a cup of ginger if you already have a low blood pressure or if you are taking high blood pressure medications. But if you are taking just about the recommended 4 grams of ginger a day, you won’t experience these negative effects.

If you are still worried about drinking ginger tea while you are expecting, this post might just give you the peace of mind that you need. It is worthwhile to note that ginger tea is considered safe during pregnancy. It actually has more benefits than just providing you with a flavorful water alternative during pregnancy. It can ease morning sickness and helps improve your overall health. But you still have to put a limit when drinking ginger tea. Always seek your doctor’s advise when you are in doubt.

Benefits of Drinking Ginger Tea

Ginger tea helps you properly hydrated

When you are heavy with a baby your bathroom routines also changes. Hormonal changes during pregnancy drive more blood to your kidneys causing your bladder to fill up quickly. As a result, you will feel the urge to pee more frequently. Your growing uterus also puts pressure on your bladder, which increases that urge to urinate even more frequently.

Since you lose more body water, you will need to drink more fluids to maintain the body water balance in your body. There are times that you will find drinking water not so enticing, so you will think of drinking other liquid alternatives. Drinks high in caffeine and sugar are definitely the best choice, however. Too much caffeine can cause your blood pressure level to rise and will increase your heart rate. This can also affect your baby’s sleep cycle. This will just ruin your day.

Herbal teas like ginger tea will be one of the best options you can take. Add some honey, peppermint, and/or lemon to a cup of hot ginger tea and enjoy. Remember that you need to limit your intake of ginger tea as well as the amount of honey or sugar that you add in your drinks as this can increase the risk of gestational diabetes. Ginger tea is also a good source of vitamins B6 and C and magnesium, and other nutrients in trace amounts.

Ginger tea can help relieve morning sickness

Early signs of pregnancy include nausea and vomiting. These symptoms are more commonly known as morning sickness and are triggered by the increase in the human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) hormone. Although morning sickness may indicate a healthy pregnancy, it can be annoying and quite exhausting.

Some pregnant women find comfort in drinking ginger tea when they experience morning sickness, however. Ginger contains gingerols, an active chemical that converts to zingerones and shogaols with heat. These elements can help relieve nausea, vomiting, and, even, diarrhea.

Ginger tea helps with digestive problems

During the first trimester, your pregnancy hormones may trigger delayed digestion. Your condition also makes the lower esophageal sphincter more relaxed causing the food to easily reach back up the esophagus and lead to acid reflux. As the uterus expands to accommodate your developing baby, the uterus creates pressure on the abdominal wall, which can also cause acid reflux and bloating.

Drinking ginger tea can stimulate the flow of digestive juices and helps improve gastric emptying. This eases the unpleasant feeling that you may be experiencing during the latter part of your pregnancy.

Given all these benefits, we can safely say that drinking ginger tea can be quite beneficial for you and your baby.